


carry you like a thorn in my heart

by Pandelion



Category: Bleach
Genre: Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Selective Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27620492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandelion/pseuds/Pandelion
Summary: Ichigo runs out of excuses after a month.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 11
Kudos: 171





	carry you like a thorn in my heart

Ichigo runs out of excuses after a month. Sick with the flu, out of town funeral, class trip to the beach, the annual visit to his mother’s grave… There are only so many lies he can tell that people would believe. Granted, the last one isn’t an excuse, but it still feels a bit like he’d used his grief as a shield to ward off a discussion he doesn’t want to have.

After a month, the incisions have healed, the stitches removed. All that’s left are the thin, red lines on his chest and some lingering bruises. There are scars inside, as well, he knows. More incisions made into his lungs, his heart, his ribs where the thorns had pierced through at the end.

He doesn’t remember that. All he has are the scars and the instructions from the doctor. No strenuous exercise. Get an inhaler. Don’t drink alcohol or energy drinks for at least a month following the surgery. The usual.

He doesn’t remember the disease itself, but he can see his sister’s faces when he comes home from the hospital, the way they watch him over the next few weeks, too careful to keep him in sight like he’d disappear if they don’t. He recognizes his father’s concern in the pain relievers and anti-inflammatories that are left on his desk with a glass of water.

Surgery is either an early response or a last-ditch effort to survive and he can guess which one applies, here.

The scarring is too extensive for him to have been anything but dying.

He kind of wishes he could remember who it had been for, but that’s the trade off. The plants take their thorns and vines with them, but they also take the feelings, the memories of who and why and how. He doesn't even remember what flower had invaded his chest.

Unfortunately, such a last minute case meant they had to be aggressive in removing the plants, more invasive than the procedure usually is. Some of the scarring is deep and close to vital areas. The restriction on exercise will be a life-long thing, the inhaler a necessary accessory to try and keep him from ripping himself apart if something does happen.

No more late night patrols if he’s expecting to have to swing his sword at all. No more running in the mornings. No more sparring with Chad or Renji.

No more weekly fights with Grimmjow.

He’s avoided it as long as he could, but apparently Grimmjow hadn’t believed whatever Urahara had come up with to tell him today. Ichigo had been too tired that morning to do more than text Urahara that he wouldn’t be coming in. But he can feel Grimmjow approaching with all the inevitability of a shinkansen.

Ichigo sighs and pulls the blanket up further, pressing back into the couch cushion. His skin had been sensitive earlier, the scars aching at even the light weight of a shirt, so he’d gone without, but now he’s too tired to try and put one on before Grimmjow arrives.

The knock at the door is almost unexpected; he’d thought Grimmjow would come through his bedroom window. Yuzu sets down the plate she’s washing - across the room from Ichigo, but still there, still present - and goes to answer the door before Ichigo can think to tell her not to. “Hello? Hel - oh! Is it….Grimmjow-san? Hello, Grimmjow-san! You’re probably looking for Brother, yes? He’s inside, come in!”

Ichigo groans, but what’s done is done. It’s not like he can throw Grimmjow out again after Yuzu’s invited him in. A moment later, Yuzu comes into the living room, Grimmjow trailing behind her and clearly looking for a fight.

“Brother! Grimmjow-san is here to see you!”

Ichigo manages a smile for her. Not her fault, after all. “Thanks, Yuzu.”

She beams at him and excuses herself up the stairs, leaving him alone with Grimmjow.

Neither of them say anything for a long minute. Grimmjow’s staring at him, but Ichigo keeps his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall. 

“You’re not dead, after all,” Grimmjow says eventually.

“You thought I was dead?”

“Thought it might be possible, since I figured that was the only way you’d miss a month’s worth of Friday nights.” Grimmjow’s got his thumbs hooked through his belt, head tilted as he considers Ichigo. “The asshole said you were on a journey of self discovery, but that sounded like a terrible excuse, so I figured I’d come over, see what you had to say for yourself.”

Journey of self discovery? Is that all Urahara had been able to come up with? Ichigo is never asking him to make up an excuse again, ever. “Yeah,” he says. “Journey to self discovery. Absolutely.”

Grimmjow frowns. “Try that again, but without lying this time,” he says, halfway to a growl.

Ichigo sighs. He’s tired. He’s tired in all the ways it’s possible to be tired. A shrug dislodges the blanket and it slips down to pool around his waist, baring his chest. “You want the truth, Grimmjow? The truth is, I’m never fighting you again. I  _ can’t _ fight you again.”

“The fuck are those,” Grimmjow asks, coming closer, blue eyes fixed on the thin, red lines. They haven’t faded to white yet, still standing out stark against Ichigo’s skin. “Who got you?”

“I don’t know,” Ichigo sighs. “It’s from...you know about the hanahaki disease?”

“Sure. Fall in love with someone, only it’s not mutual, so you hack up flowers until you die or fall out of love. Human shit,” Grimmjow says, glancing up at Ichigo’s face, then back down to the scars. “You had it?”

“Mm. The surgery was last month to remove the flowers.”

“Doesn’t that shit wrap up in your lungs and all?” Grimmjow asks.

Ichigo nods. “Yeah. That’s why we can’t fight anymore. I can’t...that much movement could reopen the cuts they had to make, even years later. It was...they had to remove a lot. And the scars carry over into my spirit form.”

A year ago, he thinks Grimmjow would have declared him useless and turned away in anger at losing Ichigo as a rival. Now...now he just stands there, quiet, still staring at Ichigo’s scars. Ichigo fights the urge to pull the blanket up again, to cover up. He’s not used to sitting around Grimmjow. Not used to having his attention like this without swords between them.

“Our last fight,” Grimmjow says, slow, like he’s feeling the words out as he goes. “You were...you kept twitching. Like you were holding in a cough. Guess you were, huh?”

Ichigo...does not remember that last fight, but it would have been shortly before the surgery, when the disease was at its worst. “I...yeah, probably.”

Grimmjow catches the hesitation, because of course he does. “You don’t remember.” Statement, not a question.

“No,” Ichigo admits.

“The coughing or the fight itself?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Grimmjow growls, turning on his heel to pace, just a few sharp steps before turning back the other direction. “When’s the last time you remember fighting me?”

Ichigo opens his mouth, then closes it when he realizes it’s not an easy answer. They fight every Friday night, borrowing the training room below Urahara’s shop. They’ve been doing that for over a year. But the last time he can actually remember fighting Grimmjow…

“The last weekend in January,” he says finally, a little unsure. It was almost six months ago. “But I don’t...I don’t remember who won.”

Grimmjow stops pacing, fixes narrow eyes on him. “I won,” he says. “And you were really weird about it, even though I almost took your arm off.”

Ichigo doesn’t remember that, either.

“That hanahaki shit. You lose your memories if you lose the flowers, right?”

There’s a slow, creeping sensation in Ichigo’s gut. It feels like dread. “Yeah,” he says. “Not all memories, just. Just the ones about being in love.”

“And you can’t remember our fights for the last six months,” Grimmjow presses and Ichigo covers his face, blocks out the too-intense expression Grimmjow’s wearing.

“No,” he says. “No, that’s not - I don’t - it’s not that simple.”

“Except it is,” Grimmjow snarls and he’s pulling Ichigo’s hands away, leaning over him, too close. “Fuck, Kurosaki, you always have to make it so much harder than it is.”

And then Grimmjow’s kissing him, lips warm and a little chapped, the edge of his mask pressing into Ichigo’s nose, and all Ichigo can see is blue, blue, blue.

It takes a second to register, a second more for Ichigo to make a decision and kiss back. He can’t fight Grimmjow anymore, but maybe he can still keep him.

It’s not until hours later that he realizes the scars have stopped aching.


End file.
